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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#81

Post by asdff »

johnvanommen wrote: post #71
bradlys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a "boom" is an overstatement. The camera industry overall is dying and struggling. We're down to something like 10% of camera sales from 2010. There is no boom. There is a transition from DSLR to mirrorless for the few existing dedicated camera photographers out there.

I have a $600 DSLR that I bought at Costco on a whim, fifteen years ago. Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade. Camera phone lenses do alright when it's sunny outside, but DSLRs kill it when it comes to medium and low light.

And of course, the dslr looks perfect in perfect light too. You can do things that make your images even better with dslrs since you have access to the raw files and complete control over exposure. You can underexpose for a night scene to not blow up highlights and shoot at lower noise or at a shutter speed you can hand hold without blur (depends on your current focal length), then pull up the exposure only on the shadows where you aren't liable to notice much noise anyway. You can get that shot on a bright blue day that looks like what you eyes see with this technique, where you can see the blue sky and shadows under trees just fine, by exposing for the sky to not blow it out, and then pulling up the shadows. For any pro digital camera built in the last 15 years, you can pull a lot before the noise gets too unruly. A camera like an old 5dmk1 is still great at this, and its almost 20.

Trying to expose for the highlights is annoying on the iphone at least. It doesn't hold exposure lock that reliably, and the slider needs to be a lot more sensitive to actually let me quickly stop down the exposure. Usually I miss click since you have to swipe several times, and it resets the exposure. Then you are left with a jpeg that's compressed with some aggressive de noising applied probably missing most of the color depth too.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#82

Post by antisthenes »

op00to wrote: post #74
Zak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

If you honestly think your phone camera is a valid replacement for medium/large format film, then you were never serious about photography in the first place.

For all their improvements, smartphones are still extremely limited by sensor size and the size of optics. Those are terrible, compared to even the entry level DSLRs.

I'm glad it works for your use case (although I can't imagine what that is), but any decent photographer will be able to tell a smartphone picture from a picture taken with good optics and a DSLR. It's just that the market for those photos has also shrunk and the masses are happy with their instagram filter drivel.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#83

Post by Zak »

op00to wrote: post #74
Zak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

That's an interesting transition. Why were you choosing those formats over digital ILCs at that time? Most people I hear from choosing film within the past decade, especially larger formats are as interested in the process as the result.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#84

Post by [deleted] »

op00to wrote: post #74
Zak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer fixed-lens cameras are much more dead as a market than ILCs, and those made up the bulk of camera sales. Almost everyone who isn't doing photography as a profession or serious hobby is satisfied with smartphone cameras now.

I used to shoot only medium and large format film. Maybe 3-4 years ago, I realized I can do everything I want with my phone camera.

[deleted]

Re: DPReview.com to close

#85

Post by twen_ty »

Checks date - it's not April 1st. This is incredibly sad - and also makes me angry how big corporations like Amazon can destroy communities just like that.

DPReview wasn't just about in-depth camera reviews which they pioneered and excelled at but also about the forums where photographers of all level of skills and interests would come together to share their passion and thoughts. This more than anything else would be a massive loss.

What's next? IMDB?

Re: DPReview.com to close

#86

Post by marricks »

This is one of the first review sites I got into, and really set the standard for what I came to expect from reviews. I fell into and out of photography a lot but I was always left wanting... this, exactly this in whatever other tech things I was interested in.

I learned a lot reading the review, and trusted them a lot. I just recommended them to a sibling a week ago for a camera rental. These days I don't get emotional or attached to websites (or companies) but this one hits, and hard.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#87

Post by asdff »

dylan604 wrote: post #80
pjc50 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gloomy prediction: based on Samsung Moongate, the next logical step after the smartphone camera replacing the DSLR is AI replacing the smartphone camera. Or at least substituting for underlying camera quality. Take a 10MP image and have the AI fill in the detail. Or remove detail (see the google advert for editing people out of your holiday photos). Or put in some detail that wasn't there.

new from Samsung. it's a black box perfectly square just to make Jobs turn over in his grave. there are no lenses, but it's the most incredible camera you've ever seen. it has a microphone where you tell it the image you want... "I want to see a picture with me at the Grand Canyon with nobody else in the shot at sunset after storm has just passed with a rainbow in the background" waits a few seconds, boom. post to so…

I can't decide if in the future we will be bloblike sloths in chairs like in Wall-E, or maybe it will be like The Matrix but you are plugged into a peleton bike.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#89

Post by asdff »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
giobox wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked. ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victi…

Gloomy prediction: based on Samsung Moongate, the next logical step after the smartphone camera replacing the DSLR is AI replacing the smartphone camera. Or at least substituting for underlying camera quality. Take a 10MP image and have the AI fill in the detail. Or remove detail (see the google advert for editing people out of your holiday photos). Or put in some detail that wasn't there.

"subscribe to android photos plus to have all the ai applied billboards removed from your photos"

Re: DPReview.com to close

#90

Post by arghwhat »

bradlys wrote: post #46
asdff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, there's another boom currently going on. The mirrorless boom, and this site is the gold standard for that one as well. Now there is no home, and its much harder to gleam the differences that are actually meaningful between these many mirrorless cameras (and new dslrs that do get made).

a "boom" is an overstatement. The camera industry overall is dying and struggling. We're down to something like 10% of camera sales from 2010. There is no boom. There is a transition from DSLR to mirrorless for the few existing dedicated camera photographers out there.

The point-and-shoot market collapsed, but the dslr market is not nearly as dramatically affected with 2010 numbers not too far off 2018 numbers based on statista charts[1].

On the other hand, mirrorless is starting to show growth[2].

Looking at the overall camera-sales are misleading, especially considering that it largely shuffled numbers around within big companies: A Samsung point-and-shoot with a Samsung sensor became a Samsung smartphone with a Samsung sensor, selling even more units with the camera still being a primary selling point.

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[1]: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4242091-why-nikon-and-canon...

[2]: https://petapixel.com/2023/02/15/2022-was-officially-the-yea... (using CIPA data)

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